"In an institution," I said.
"Institution? What institution?"
"I don't know the name of it."
"Well, why's he there? Is it a military school or something?"
"No. He had to go because of what he did to Miss Harper."
"Who's Miss Harper? A teacher?"
"She was our minder."
"What's a minder?"
"After my parents got into their accident, she came to live with us and take care of us. She was in charge, but she was very mean to Ian and he put rat poison in her glass of water. She kept a glass by her bed.."
"Rat poison! Holy crap."
She sat up as if she had a spring in her spine. Her eyes grew narrow, suspicious.
"You ain't just having fun with me, are you?"
I shook my head.
"Are you telling me the truth, because if you're lying to me..."
"I don't lie. My grandmother Emma says people who lie are afraid and weak."
She stared at me and then relaxed again.
"Okay. Your brother put rat poison in Miss Harper's glass of water. So what happened to her?"
"She died."
"You're sitting there and telling me your brother murdered her? I never heard such a story about any March. Didn't your great- aunt know?"
'No. She doesn't remember Ian, and she doesn't know where he is now or what he did. I haven't told her yet. She doesn't like to hear about bad things, unhappy things."
Alanis sat back and stared at me a moment. Then she shook her head.
"I know what you're saying. If something like that really happened. I can believe they wouldn't care about telling your great-aunt. She's on another planet."
She stared at me, then nodded, leaning forward.
"But I'll tell you something, girl. You look older than you say you are. Your parents were in a bad accident. You say your brother poisoned some witchy woman and he's now in an institution, and you're here to live with Miss Piggy?"
"You shouldn't call her that. It's not nice."
"Well, you seen how she lives."
"I'm going to help with the housework." I said. "It's not nice to call her names," I insisted. "She's an adult."
"If she's an adult. I'm a senior citizen."
"She is!"
"Whatever you say."
She thought again for a moment, then smiled.
"Life 'round here has been pretty boring, but something tells me we're going to have a good time," she said. "Right?"
I shrugged. "I don't know."
"Take my word for it. So tell me all about this brother of yours and this mansion your grandmother owns. Don't hold back on nothing neither. You can trust me. I ride the same bus and go to the same school, so we're going to be friends, okay?"
I nodded. "Will you tell me things, too?" I asked her.
"Sure, I will," she said. laughing. "You can just ask away anytime you want."
That's good, I thought, Ian always said questions were the steps on the ladder we climbed to becoming adults,
"Go ahead, in fact," she said, sitting back with her arms folded, as if she was ready for anything. "You can have the first question. We'll take turns."
I can? That's really very nice of her,
I thought. I knew exactly what my first question would be.
"Go ahead," she challenged more firmly. "What's your first question?"
I leaned toward her, and her eyes widened with expectation. "Well?"
"What were you doing with that boy in the basement?"
.
"What do you think we were doing in the basement?'" Alanis fired back. She wore a crooked smile over her lips.
I tried to think of the best way to answer, the way Ian would answer.
"Well?"
"It looked like that boy was putting tadpoles in you," I said.
I never had anyone laugh so hard at something I had said, but I wasn't happy about it. No one laughed at Ian's answers.
"Tadpoles, huh? I know what you mean. We had a health class last year and the teacher, the school nurse, put on a slide show about human reproduction. The things boys have in them did look like tadpoles. Hey. I think that's what I'll call Chad next time I see him, Tadpole."
"Was that what he was doing? Aren't you worried about getting pregnant?" I asked quickly. Ian had made it sound as if that always happened.
"Worried about getting pregnant. huh? You're absolutely sure you're telling me the truth about your age?" she asked, tilting her head and squinting at me.
"Yes. I am."
She stared at me a moment longer and relaxed,
"I guess you might be. I know some other girls younger than me who look older, too. I even know a girl in fourth grade who looks like she could be in ninth."
"Maybe she has precocious puberty. My brother Ian told me all about it."
"What's that?"
"It's when your body grows faster than it's supposed to."
She nodded slowly.
"I bet that's what's wrong with Janet Ward's sister."
"My doctor told my mother it's happening a lot more than ever."
She sat forward, her eyes widening,
"That so? I want you to tell me all about it." she said.
'I don't remember that much. Ian did his research and..."
We heard Mae Betty calling for Alanis.
"Oh. damn." Alanis said. "Just when we were getting to a good part." She went to the window to shout back. "What, Mama?"
"You get your booty over here. Alanis, and help me with this cleaning up right now."
"Oh, Ma."
"You get over here, girl.
I
ain't fooling."
"Damn," she said, turning back to me. "That chauffeur sure raised hell around here. C'mon," she said. "We can talk while I work on Miss... on your great-aunt's house. Here," she said, handing me a stick of bubble gum.
I looked at it and shook my head.
"Ian says not to eat stuff like this. It will make holes in your teeth."
"Ian says? Ian ain't telling you what to do here, is he?"
"Yes, he is," I said.
"What?" She stopped in the doorway. "I thought you just said he was in an institution for killing that woman with rat poison."
"He is."
"Then how can he be here telling you what to do?"
"He's in here," I said, pointing to my head. "I always hear things he said long after he said them. Ian's very smart. so I try to listen to him."
I wasn't going to tell her about his letters. I was sure he had all sorts of advice for me. Or at least I hoped he had, and it would be personal.
She stared at me with her mouth open, and then she smiled.
"C'mon," she said, took back her stick of gum and hurried out and down the steps.
Bones rose and followed us, but when it was obvious we were heading for the house, he turned around and returned to the porch. I guess he really was afraid of Miss Puss. I thought.
"You didn't answer my question and you said I could have the first question," I reminded her as we continued quickly to Great-aunt Frances's house.
"I didn't, did I? No, no tadpoles today. He tried, but I wasn't doing it with him."
"Why were you with him with nothing on top and he only in his underwear then?"
"Damn, girl, don't go saying that so loud," she warned, pausing and looking at the house. She thought a moment, then asked, "You ever go fishing?"
"Not really. I was in a boat on the lake but I didn't go fishing. Ian did."
"Good for Ian. My granddaddy will probably talk you into fishing with him in the lake back there. Anyway." she said as she continued toward the house, "it's like fishing."
"What is?"
"Being with a boy like Chad. You put bait on a hook and get him to nibble. If you want, you pull him all the way. If you don't, you tease him to death or until he begs and promises so much, you throw up, give in or leave him dangling. Sometimes it's more fun to leave them dangling. Boys need to be taught a lesson, otherwise they treat you like you're their property and I ain't being any boy's property."
"Property?
I
don't know what you mean." I said.
"Yeah, you will. You got the body started. You might as well start on the rest of it, learning about it and boys especially. And you're lucky, girl. 'cause you got me to be your new... what you call it, minder? Just don't put rat poison in my water,' she added, laughing, and ran the rest of the way to the house.
I
hurried after her. As soon as we entered. Mae Betty
,
gave her work to do.
Despite what Great-aunt Frances said Grandmother Emma had told her concerning the work servants were supposed to do and how we were to treat them. I didn't like standing around and watching other people clean up for me while I did nothing. Ian hated Nancy coming into his room and once locked her out, but that was for other reasons. He liked his privacy and hated snoops. I really liked helping. Besides. I thought. Grandmother Emma wouldn't have told me Great-aunt Frances needed me if she hadn't expected I would help with some things,
Mae Betty had Alanis finish washing and vacuuming the floors downstairs and finish
straightening up the rooms while she went upstairs to straighten up the bedrooms and collect the dirty dishes and glasses. With her father working on the plumbing and window curtains, bulbs and other things Felix had assigned him, the house was undergoing what Greataunt Frances called "a face-lift."
"I know it's what Emma wants, and we'd better do what Emma wants," she sang.
She fluttered about from room to room doing little things herself, but spending most of her time planning what she had called our
Gone With the Wind
dinner. I had heard about
Gone With the Wind
, but I had never seen it. She went down to the basement and came up with an armful of dresses that smelled strange. She told me they had been kept in mothballs, but not to worry because we would wear enough perfume to drown out the odor.
While she went upstairs to sort it all. I helped Alanis clean up the kitchen and then the dining room. I found dirty cups and glasses everywhere and imagined that some had been left for weeks, if not months. Whatever had been in them had caked over and was hard and crusted.
"There are rats here," Alanis insisted. "So don't depend on that lazy cat to keep them away. I seen them traveling over the pipes in the basement, and now you know why. She as much as invites them in, my mother says. Lucky you come here to live, otherwise this place would get so bad, it would be condemned by the health department. How come your grandmother let it be like this if she's such a wealthy, high-and-mighty woman. huh?"
"I don't think she knew about it," I said.
"Well, why not? Don't she have all sorts of people working for her, checking up on things? How come she waited until now to send that chauffeur around, huh?"
"I don't know," I said, but what she asked made me wonder again. Grandmother Emma had too much pride to have anyone see this. I thought. What was stranger than her pride, strong enough to keep her from caring?
"You know what I think? I think your greataunt is an embarrassment for her so she
embarrassment to her and couldn't care less what happened out here. My granddaddy was never worried too much about it. I can tell you that. Matter of fact, this is the first time I can remember anyone came here to look things over,"
"How long have you been living here?"
"Two years, and some. We came after my daddy took off with Marlene Lilly, a strip dancer who worked in the club he supposedly owned with two other men. Turned out they didn't own nothing and we had nothing, so we moved in with my granddaddy. My mother's bartender over at a club called the Canary. She says no man's worth trusting. She says its like putting your money in quicksand. She says she'll never get married again."
"I'm sorry your father left you." I said.
"Yeah, me too. but I'm through crying about it." she told me. However, when I looked at her, she looked like tears had come into her eyes.
She knelt down and started pulling things out from under the sofa in the living room. A box of crackers had been kicked underneath and there were pieces of bread and a quarter of a rotten apple.
"Damn, she got ants," she said, "I'd better get the vacuum cleaner," she told me. "The gobs of dust under there would choke a horse. Like I said, lucky you came. Maybe your grandmother knew what she was doing. Maybe this was her way to save her sister."
Maybe. I thought, although I still had no firm idea why she would have waited this long.
Something told me it wouldn't be too long before I found out.
I stood off to the side and watched Alanis do the vacuuming. No matter what she did, she didn't take off her hat.
"I hate doing this in our place," she muttered. She saw me just standing there and asked me if I wanted to do it. "You said you wanted to help your great-aunt."
"I guess so." I said, so she handed the vacuum cleaner to me and I started. Nancy never let me do it back at the mansion. Although Alanis hated it. I thought it was fun. Soon after I had started. however. I heard her mother screaming from the doorway. Alanis had sprawled on the sofa and was reading Great-aunt Frances's soap opera magazines while I continued vacuuming. I shut it off quickly.
"Whatcha making that little girl do that? You want them all after us?"
"Look at her. She's not such a little girl and she wanted to do it," Alanis whined.
"She don't know what she's doing. Get this room finished. I need to get ready to go to work at the Canary. Go on before I put your grandfather on you." she threatened.
Alanis took back the vacuum cleaner.
"You better go see your great-aunt or something. I don't need my mother on my back." she said. "I'll come look for you after dinner and we'll go down into the basement and talk and you can tell me all about that puberty thing and your brother and all. Your great-aunt will probably fall asleep watching television. Most nights she don't even go up to bed."
"How do you know?"
"I know." She smiled, "Chad's not the first boy I brought to the basement. It's like having my own apartment. Boys are impressed with stuff like that."
She turned on the vacuum cleaner. I watched her a moment, then walked out and up the stairs. When I looked in on Great- aunt Frances. I saw she had put on one of the old dresses. It was too tight around her bosom. She couldn't button it all the way up in the back, but she twirled about in front of her full- length mirror, smiling as if she saw a completely different woman wearing a dress that fit perfectly.
"Why, Miss Melody Ann," she cried when she saw me in the mirror. She spun around. "Shouldn't you be preparing for the gala dinner? You need to start on your clothes and your hair."
Who's Miss Melody Ann? I wondered. I actually turned to look behind me.
She laughed and twirled and then she flopped on the bed, the wide, long skirt falling around her. For a moment she just stared at me. Then she shook her head and dropped her arms to her sides as if her arms had turned into lead pipes. The smile flew off her face like a bird frightened off a branch.
"You look too much like my sister when you scowl like that. Jordan. Don't you want to have fun, be happy?"
I nodded.
"So, smile, don't scowl," she said. She looked like she was about to start crying. "Emma would never pretend when we were children. She never appreciated her toys like I did. None of her dolls meant anything to her. You know what I told her once? I told her one day you were ten and the next day you were twenty. I bet she's sorry now. I bet she wishes she could be ten again and wait until she was twenty." She pulled her shoulders up, folded her arms under her breasts and narrowed her eyelids. "Okay, who do you want to be more like. Emma or me?" she asked.
The question terrified me. She sat there, waiting, not moving her gaze off my face.
If I said Grandmother Emma, which was what I imagined Ian would want me to say. Great-aunt Frances would be sad, upset, maybe even angry at me. On the other hand. I didn't want to be like she was.
"I don't want to be anybody else,"
I
said, and she clapped her hands and smiled.
"What a bright reply. Oh. I'm so happy you didn't say Emma. That means you can be either one of us anytime you want to be. Tonight, you can be like me," she said, rising.
She went to the pile of clothes on the floor and pulled apart dresses and skirts and blouses until she settled on a dress she wanted me to wear. It was blue and white with pink swirls through the white. It had frilly sleeves and a frilly collar. When she held it up. I thought it looked more like a costume than a dress.
"Go try this on. It will be too big and too long. but I'll fix it for you. Come back as soon as you get into it," she said. handing me the dress.
She returned to her mirror and began to undo her pigtails. "I have to do my hair in the meantime. Go on." she said. waving
,
at the door.
I looked down at the dress. I couldn't imagine wearing
,
it, but I went to my room and took off what I was wearing to put it on. I was swimming in it. The bodice fell forward, the sleeves were too long and the skirt dragged on the floor. It was like wearing a sheet. I lifted the skirt so I could walk and returned to her bedroom.
She turned away from the mirror and
immediately smiled.
"Oh, it's nearly perfect!" she cried. "Come on in and let me make some small adjustments for you."
Nearly perfect? Small adjustments?
I stepped in farther, and she went to her vanity table, opened a drawer, and came up with handfuls of safety pins.
"C'mon, c'monon. Don't be shy. I mean, don't be too shy. A young lady of quality should be shy. Bold women get reputations very quickly, you know."
I realized she was speaking in a Southern accent. It didn't sound phony either. She was good at it, and it made me smile. I saw she liked that. She started to pull gobs of the material together around my body and use the safety pins to keep them folded. I watched her face as she worked. She seemed to glow with pleasure, little girl pleasure, the smile deepening around her lips and eyes. She used dozens and dozens of pins until she had the dress tightened and formed so I could move about with it on.
"There," she said finally. "Perfect. Go look at yourself. Melody Ann Pinewood."